How did one of the richest and best paid guilds come to the brink of a strike? Deadline Hollywood has an excellent summary of the WGA leader’s rhetoric, starting with Sept 21/15 right through to April 10.17. It’s my purpose to present some of their rhetoric and to refute it with real facts and figures.

99.2% OF THOSE WORKING IN THE INDUSTRY WOULD BE HIT

First of all, let’s look to see how many writers are involved, and compare that to the number of other people will be affected by a WGA strike. In May of 2016, the Bureau of Labor Statistics published that 422,560 people were employed within the “Motion Picture and Video Industries”. Out of the 422,560 people, only 3,460 people are classified as “Writers and Authors”. To make a point, that is only 0.8% of the total number of people employed within the industry were Writers at the time of that survey, leaving 99.2% of the industry severely impacted. Hmmmm. Without getting into anything else, I think that those numbers tell you something, especially when compared to a writer’s average annual salaries – see further below.

RHETORIC – AVERAGE WRITER’S INCOME HAS GONE DOWN

The rhetoric raised by the WGA to support a strike bid leaves me scratching my head. Per Deadline Hollywood, the WGA Reps are saying, “During this ‘peak TV’ era, when more television is being produced than ever, and when everyone who works in television is finding a sellers’ market for their skills, why is the average TV writer seeing their income go down?” This seems astonishing! How could the average salaries go down?

COMPARING 23 EPISODES WITH 13 EPISODES

Well, in the “old days” the TV writers were working generally, on 22 or 23 episodes a season – not always, mind you, but generally speaking. These days the trend is toward producing 13 episodes a season – this is the new formula supported by streaming services and the various Cable television programs. So, yes, a writer who worked on 23 episodes would make more than someone who worked on 13 episodes – Duh! The elephant in the room is: How many more writers are actually making a living now as compared to them good ‘ol days? Well, the answer is a lot more.

COMPARING 2009 WITH 2015

To give you an idea of how very few active television writers there were in 2009, here is what Charles B. Slocum (Asst Exec Dir of WGA West) said in Aug/Sept 2009, “In 24 hours, NBC has just three hours of dramas and comedies. And, on some nights those make way for Dateline or Deal No Deal.” So, it’s a fair conclusion that very few writers indeed were working in those good ‘ol days.

Here is a comparative statistic from Deadline Hollywood going back to 2015 when the streaming companies (HBO, Netflix, Starz, Amazon) just started to hit their stride: “The guild’s records also show that in 2015, TV writers earned $803 million under the WGA West’s basic contract, for an average annual income of $194,478, which was $48,936 more than they made in 2006.” Are we to support the writers because “the average tv writer has seen their average income go down?”

DO YOU DISAGREE WITH A WGA STRIKE?

I have more tables to support the writers fees, including their residuals, all based on their WGA 2014-2017 Theatrical and Television Agreement. However, I think you get the point – another writer’s strike is unsupportable. You can have a look at their “Schedule of Minimums” published on their web site.

Should I start a petition? If it won’t stop a strike, at least the WGA will know how the majority feels. Let me know how you feel.